Fear is Logical
by waxonwings
Summary: The only thing that ever made sense to eleven year old Aria was her disease: a constant routine of ticks and little obsessions and compulsions. Her best friend Spencer is the only real and true thing she's ever had, and maybe the only voice of reason in Aria's paint-splatter mind. One-shot. The song is Jimmy Whispers by Manchester Orchestra. Check it out, I promise I don't suck.


Aria pulled at her ears, nails sinking into her skin, running over the cartilage. She could feel all of the germs crawling across her and marching like ants. It was like they were holding her head underwater, waiting for her to sputter and choke. Her entire world sounded like graphite scratching paper, a constant tick, tick, tick and she remembers the feeling, like watching a tornado flying at her and the only way to stop it was to spend twenty minutes making _sure_ that the stove was off, to change her shirt if it touched the bottom of her shoe, to hold Mike so close that he was too afraid to struggle out of her grasp. She always felt like she had to duck, curl in on herself or pace across the room twenty times, she loved the perfect two-zero. She had whole notebooks with pages just filled with the number. Over and over again until the cramps in her brain spread to her hand and she couldn't form the letters right anymore.

_God knows you're on my mind_

_I can try to tell him otherwise_

_God knows its only time_

_Before I break the chain in my eyes_

Spencer was coming to her house later, and Aria's compulsions shook her head with riveting violence, she thought about pushing her friend into the street or slamming her hand in the door, about burning her with her curling iron. She hated that these thoughts could so easily conquer her rationale, the way they force fed her lies and reasons to hurt the people she loved.

Her doctor had been hesitant to prescribe anything that might have dulled the edges since she was so young, only eleven as of March. But what she always told herself that in relativity, a dull blade hurts worse because it has to push harder. She didn't think that anything could make it better, because this was just how her brain worked. It was just trying to keep her safe.

_The fear keeps you hiding at night_

_The creatures play ball outside_

_The chances are slim we are right_

_But I'd never think it any otherwise_

She sipped water from her glass, always filtered twice, though it would have made her feel better if they'd let her do it twenty times. Her eyes traced the rim and landed on a lone hair breaking the surface, and her mouth filled with the taste of vomit as she leaped out of her seat and poured it out quickly, spit dribbling down her shin as she scraped her tongue off over the sink. Already the walls looked like they were getting tighter, her lungs were getting tighter, and she slammed the glass onto the counter and paced over to the fridge. Returning back to the sink, to the fridge, to the sink to the fridge to the sink fridge sink fridge sink fridge sink fridgesinkfridge- and then the door rang. She didn't want to answer it until she'd washed her hands, she could just see them crawling with germs. Her mouth felt like a petri dish. Did she have time to brush her teeth? Gargle peroxide? Oh, how she wished. But she didn't, and so she opened the door, and then closed it in her friend's face. Open and close- she repeated this until she'd hit lucky number twenty, and let Spencer in. The girl's face glittered with benevolent amusement, as Aria pumped hand sanitizer into her palms and up her forearms, her voice shaking as she tried to explain why she was the way she was.

_So we'll find the answers in time_

_When the bodies pile up sky high_

_And I'll sail the ship towards the sky_

_With the wind all alone on the other side_

Spencer never tried to understand, she listened to what her friend had to say and held her quivering gaze until she was somewhat placated, but she never claimed any level of certainty about the nature of Aria's illness. As Spencer talked, Aria stared at the door latch, trying to discern whether it was locked. Was this what it looked like locked? Should she get up and check? It didn't take much persuasion from her mind, and she was out of her seat, fiddling with it, back and forth. If someone pushes on it, will it stay? What if someone got in and took her? Worse, she thought, what if they took Spencer? She pushed her shoulder onto the door to see if it would budge, and repeated on the other side, trying to see if she could get it. Spencer thought her friend was like a modern day Sisyphus- no matter how many times she locked the door, she'd have to do it again until someone stopped her. That one was her weak point: there was nothing calming about hitting twenty.

_If you could pull that rope just a little higher_

_We would dangle alone like a firefly_

_So Jimmy, I've heard the voice of god_

_And he whispered fear is logical_

"Aria?" She said, holding her hands behind her back as she waited for her friend to come back inside. When the door finally opened up on Spencer, Aria's face was tear streaked, and the only coherent thing she could say was about _them, _coming for _us. _Aria thought she was protecting her, when she looked at her friend's unsuspecting face all she saw was tender flesh that needed to be cleaned, and held close.

She didn't like to touch people, but her mind zeroed in on Spencer and she launched herself into her arms, burying herself in the cherry-almond smell. Spencer tried not to pull away from the raven's claws gripping her skin for dear life, tried not to shake the girl up.

_And he said, it's magic wonderful_

_He swears to him it's wonderful_

_And the lake you speak of is magical_

_So I skip stones on impractical_

Aria's sleeves were still wet from cleaning out the glass, and she wanted to rip them off, the way they clung to her skin dulled her senses until she finally just pulled the thing off and sat there in her undershirt, raking her fingers through her hair and yanking out all the ones that were less than perfect.

She begged Spencer to stay over because she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep if she wasn't sure her friend was safe, the way her own insecurity would eat at her like moths at an old sweater unless she was sleeping in the same bed as her friend. She could only see herself jammed into the smallest space possible so the storm wouldn't eat her up, the yellow light burning into her eyes and flooding her with a shaky, commanding sense of worry.

_And I make sure that we're both wonderful_

_You are brother and that's alright_

_We're brothers, it makes it right _

'_Cause his blood is so red in spite_

Spencer knew she didn't have much of a choice, she just held her friend until she felt like it was safe to leave the fortress, safe to pull away, which usually took a while. Spencer was used to this, it never bothered her much, except the suffering her friend was enduring. She had no idea she was this girl's one and only source of calm, the only one that could pacify her.

She always knew what to say, even if Aria wasn't listening, she knew she'd pick it up later. When she got a little older and things got a little worse, she wouldn't eat except in front of Spencer because when she was alone, she'd convince herself that the smell wafting into her nose and the little particles landing on her skin were poison. She had to get away, she had to wash that off of her. Eating with anyone else other than Spencer amounted to eating alone, and no matter how long she sometimes had to wait, it didn't matter. Only staring at the way her eyebrows arched, the curve of her jawbone, the feathery curl in her hair could keep her mind off of things.

_Of the way that our sharp teeth bite_

_In each other during the night _

_With the creatures that play outside_

'_Cause Jimmy, I've heard the voice of god_

She really was convinced that she was saving herself, saving Spencer. It was like someone had thrown paint at a wall, it made no sense except when you saw it in 3D. It was only a real and tangible thing inside her mind, but she knew that the chemicals would find their way into her skin, she was sure she couldn't even take Tylenol because it might hurt her liver. She knew one day the germs would catch up to her, one day she would die.

_And he whispered fear is logical_

_And the words that we heard aren't repeatable_

_With the thought that could kill comprehendible _

_And we're brothers and that's alright_

Aria's only future was the foreseeable one, she didn't think there was much out there for her. She was terrified that someday Spencer would leave her, she would find some reason and be drawn away, and Aria would only think of all the dangers she faced, all the ways she could get hurt. She knew she could only be happy if she had someone to take care of, someone the disease didn't touch. She didn't feel the tremors threatening to conquer her bones when she touched Spencer, like she did when other people were near. It was such an unusual phenomenon that she always gave it a minute in case the disease changed its mind.

Before, her obsessions had been home. Lucky number twenty and she'd sleep a little easier, the compulsions were her drug. Lining things up, a place for everything, everything in its place. It felt secure. Sometimes, when she loaded the dishwasher, she imagined that all the little bowls and plates were people boarding the city bus, and that they all had families to get back to, and she needed to get as many in as she could so no child would have to go to bed without a goodnight from their father. When she finally finished, it felt like, just for a minute, the world was _right._

_Yeah we're brothers and that's alright_

_Yeah we're brothers until we die._

But she knew now, now that she'd lived enough to know better, that that was a false reassurance and the only true and real thing she had in her life was standing right in front of her. It was like watching TV, it took your mind elsewhere. There was so much to lose yourself in. There was finally just the perfect amount of something, and as much as she worried about losing it, she finally felt truly secure.


End file.
